Safe In Your Arms Tonight
by alphaangel
Summary: The truth finally comes out. GSR all the way! I've just changed the rating because I think I was being a bit over cautious.


**Disclaimer: I do not own CSi**

**Please read and review. Please?**

Safe In Your Arms Tonight

She had been lying there beside him for hours. He was breathing slowly and steadily suggesting that he was asleep but she couldn't drop off. His warm arms were comforting and for the first time in years she felt safe, truly safe. In his arms nothing could touch her, nothing could hurt her.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, she gasped as a huge sob caught in her throat. She tried to swallow it down quietly so as not to disturb him but her whole body shook with emotion.

"Sara, what's wrong?" Grissom said waking up immediately. His voice full of concern and fear.

"I'm sorry." She stuttered.

"You don't need to be sorry, Sara," he said leaning over and turning the bedside lamp on which cast a dim light onto the room, just enough for him to be able to see the tears trickling down her cheeks.

"What's wrong?" He repeated taking a tissue from the box on the side and gently wiping the tears away.

"I'm not sure." She whispered tears pouring again. "Just lying here, feeling safe, suddenly made me realise just how miserable I've been." She said, struggling to explain something which she couldn't understand herself.

"Talk to me about it." He said taking hold of her cold hand in his warm one.

"You don't know how bad something is until you see how it should be."

Grissom wanted to reply but knew there was nothing he could say to help so he just let her keep talking.

"When I was a kid I thought that my life was normal. That all kids parents argued, that everyone's dads hit them and their mom." She paused to wipe away the tears.

"Then when I was eight my mom let me go to a sleep over at my best friend Shelly's house. Her mom cooked us dinner and her dad didn't smash the plate against the wall. Didn't hold her arm against the cooker. Didn't hit Shelly. And that night her mom and dad kissed her goodnight and we went to sleep, safe. And, I tell you, I wish to God that I had never been to that sleep over because it made everything worse.

I saw what life could be like, what life should be like. I wanted to be like Shelly, I hated my Dad for what he did to me and mom and I hated mom for not standing up to him. He'd been beating us up my entire life and she just let him. And then I felt guilty for blaming my mom when it was his fault. Guilty for not standing up to him myself."

"Sara, you were just a kid you couldn't have protected your mom."

"I could've, she would make me lie to my teachers when they saw the bruises, if I'd just told them then they'd've reported it to the police and he'd've been arrested. But I didn't, I was too scared to tell them even to protect my mom."

"I thought things couldn't get any worse but they did. On my tenth birthday my dad decided that I didn't deserve presents or a cake that year so he threw them all in the trash. Then he sat in the kitchen and got drunk, completely out of his head.

He was always worse when he was drunk so my mom tried to hide the whiskey bottle as he was sleeping in a drunken stupor. But he caught her and beat then living shit out of her.

Then he turned on me, he beat me up while she lay unconscious on the kitchen floor. He beat me up and then he, then he pushed me up again the kitchen table and he raped me. My own dad celebrated my tenth birthday by raping me."

"Shit Sara!" Grissom exclaimed, unable to restrain himself.

"I just remember closing my eyes and trying not to scream out. I didn't want to wake my mom. Didn't want her to know what he was doing to me.

When he finished he told me that if I told anyone then he'd kill my mom and me, then he went to a bar and carried on drinking.

I got a blanket for my mom and covered her up. I wanted to call 911 but I knew that questions would be asked and then he'd kill mom and me. I was terrified. So I tried to make her as comfortable as possible and then went to the bathroom and showered for hours.

I scrubbed my skin with a nail brush and soap over and over again until I was stood under freezing cold water and my skin was bleeding. I just wanted to feel clean, get his smell off of my skin. Then I threw up. I hid in my room, all night, listening for him to come home. I was terrified."

"I had no idea."

"I never told anyone, not even my mom. I was so scared of what he might do. And I was so ashamed of what I must have done to deserve it.

After that night he got into a routine, beat mom up, go out drinking and then come home after mom had gone to sleep and rape me. I was so scared.

It went on for nearly two years and then the day before my twelfth birthday I was sat in my room doing my home work when I heard them screaming at each other, I crept down the stairs to check my mom was alright and through the kitchen door I saw her just flip.

She picked up a knife from the sink and stabbed him in the abdomen over and over again. There was blood everywhere, over the floor, walls, ceiling.

The kitchen was drenched in it. I couldn't move, I just sat on the stairs and watched her. She must have stabbed him, twenty or thirty times.

And then she walked calmly out of the kitchen, picked up the phone and dialled 911. She just said 'I've killed my husband' and gave our address.

When the police arrived she was sat in front of the television with the knife still in her hand. She was covered in blood. One of the cops took the knife off of her and handcuffed her while his partner walked into the kitchen, when he saw the body he ran out through the back door and threw up.

They didn't even notice me sat there staring at his body. Not for ages, not until more cops turned up. One of them tried to talk to me, find out what had happened but I couldn't take my eyes off the body, his body. He shut the kitchen door but I just sat there, I couldn't move, couldn't get the imaged of mom stabbing him out of my mind.

Eventually a woman from child services turned up and took me to the hospital. I don't really remember anything after she turned up. I don't remember getting to the hospital, being examined by the doctor, anything at all. I just remember the image of my mom killing my dad. Even now, when I close my eyes, it's still there."

"Sara, I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"Everything that you went through."

"I didn't just lose my dad that night, I lost my mom as well. I had no family so I got stuck in foster care. Never stayed in one place longer than a few months.

Some of the homes weren't too bad. Don't really remember the first place, it was a old couple I think. Don't remember their names. They had a red front door. I was there for about a week. After that a couple of weeks in one place, a month in another.

I was in about fifty different foster homes in the six years. I think I was in a couple more than once. I never used to even unpack, no point. Didn't have much stuff any way, some clothes, a few books. Didn't want to settle anywhere because I knew that I would have to move on soon.

In some of the homes it was worse than with my mom and dad. The foster parents would scream at each other, at the other kids, at me. I ran away from countless foster homes because of domestic violence. The police would drag me back.

Eventually, after a few years I stopped caring where I lived, stop noticing. I'd stay out as long as possible, joined every after school society, spent hours at the library, anything just so that I wouldn't have to go home and face whatever nightmare place I was living in that month. I put all my focus into school so that I could get a scholarship to college and get away from the place.

For the first few weeks at college, I was so happy, I thought I'd be able to leave everything behind, except I was trying to leave myself behind and that never works. I became pretty depressed and suddenly felt lonely. I'd never missed my parents before then, never let myself anyway but seeing everyone else's mom and dad dropping them off, helping them move in, sending them letters, I felt so alone, I had no one.

I remember this one girl in my classes, she used to get so annoyed when her parents came to visit or wrote to her, she totally took them for granted and you could tell that she had been spoilt her entire life, she'd been given everything. Her parents were always sending her money, paying her fees, where as I had to work.

It seemed so unfair that she could go out partying at night, making friends and I was having to work in a bar to pay for books. I remember watching her for hours while I worked, laughing with her friends, chatting up guys. She made it look so effortless. Why did she get everything and I got nothing. She just sailed through college not doing anything, while I spent every spare minute that I wasn't working studying.

I watched her get drunk one day and stumble off with a guy that she hardly knew and I thought why can't I do the same. So after my shift finished I didn't go back to my room and study, instead I sat at the bar and got drunk . I'd hardly touched alcohol before after seeing what it did to my father so it didn't take much to get me drunk. I started chatting to this guy and then next thing I know, I'm waking up in his room really early the next morning. It was the first time I'd had sex except for what my father used to do.

I snuck back to my room and couldn't even remember his name but I liked the attention that he'd given me. Lying there beside him I hadn't felt lonely or different, I hadn't felt loved but I felt noticed. Next weekend I did the same, and again and again until I'd lost count of all the guys I'd slept with.

After a while though, it felt like I was missing something. All the guys just merged into one. Then I started sleeping with one of my professors."

"How did that happen?" Grissom asked.

"I'd gone to his office to hand an essay in. He offered to proof read it before accepting it. I thought he was being helpful, friendly. He finished reading my essay, said it was good and then kissed me. I kissed him back and then we slept together on his desk."

"He took advantage of you. He shouldn't have done that, he was your professor, he shouldn't have been sleeping with you."

Sara just shrugged.

"Was it just once?" He asked.

"Was what just once?" She said not following him.

"Did you have sex with him just once?" He asked.

She paused thinking of her response, she wanted to be honest with him but didn't know how he would take the answer.

"No." She replied finally, shaking her head. "I slept with him regularly, for a couple of years. It wasn't just sex, I thought I loved him, thought he loved me. I was desperate for someone to care about me."

"I care about you. You know that don't you?" He asked quietly.

"I know you do. And you know that I feel the same?"

He nodded, kissing her gently on the cheek. "So how come the relationship ended?"

"Er, I found out he was married. I was in the middle of my exams and I was in his office when another professor walked in. I always brought notes with me when we were in his office so that if anyone came in, we could say that I was there for help. The professor said 'your wife called earlier, can you call her back'. I might have been many things but I wouldn't break up a family.

I really trusted him, we were together for two years and he never found the time to tell me that he was married. I was so upset, not really sure how I got through my exams. I really thought he loved me. Turned out he just wanted to sleep with me. I went back to getting drunk and sleeping around. Vowed to never trust anyone again. Then I met you."

"Do you trust me?"

"Yeah, I love you." She replied smiling and resting her head against his chest.

"I love you too." He said kissing the top of her head.

"So does what I told you change anything?" She said.

"Not at all."

"It doesn't scare you off? What my father did to me? What I was like at college?"

"No, of course not. Sara, your father sexually abused you, sure, I wish it hadn't happened to you but that doesn't stop me loving you. I wish I could have stopped it happening because I care about and hate to see you suffer but nothing you tell me could ever stop me loving you."

"I've kept it hidden for so long." She said quietly. "I always thought that if anyone knew then they would leave me. Wouldn't want the hassle of someone with so much emotional baggage."

"I love you with baggage or without."

"Will you just hold me for a while? I feel safe in your arms tonight."


End file.
